A Clockwork Zhena
by Dan Sickles
Summary: Janelle was a criminal - brainwashed by the state to be the perfect wife. Frank Alexander was an angry man looking for answers. Their story is filled with passion, political intrigue, violence, hatred, and the ghosts of the past.
1. A New Victim

A CLOCKWORK ZHENA

_Alex is dead and gone – but the state continues to do its nasty business. Who will be next? Please comment nicely! _

"This has gone too far!" cried Z.B. Dolan. "Look, Frank. Just look what's in this morning's paper. Another violent criminal released and supposedly 'cured' by the government's sadistic mind-controlling techniques."

"Mm, yes." F. Alexander looked at the blurry photo on the front page. This reformed criminal wasn't a boy, like the shifty little liar they'd tossed out the window last week. This criminal was a girl, a blonde with a scared and rather gloomy expression on her lovely face. Janelle Wilkes, the article said. Just nineteen, the young girl had a long history of enticing older men with her innocent face and ripe body, luring them into being beaten and robbed by her male pals. Apparently the government had devised a "companion" program to cure depraved and dishonest young females, just as the Ludovico technique supposedly cured violent males.

"Can you imagine the terrible things they did to her, there in that women's prison?" Z.B. Dolan asked. "We ought to start a series of articles, in the liberal magazines, to show very clearly that we are against all such treatments – even if the offenders are murderers ten times over!"

"Yes, of course." Frank sighed, and pushed the newspaper back across the table at the café. He didn't regret driving the vicious Alex to leap to his death. The boy had it coming. And the state, anxious to hush up a program failure, was only too happy to label the death a suicide. But now that his poor dear wife was gone, and her killer was dead at last, the lonely widower had no desire to push things any further.

Justice had been done. All Frank wanted now was peace.

That night there was a storm. Alone in his country home, the writer tried to type up a memoir in his dear wife's memory. He wanted to honor her gentleness, her loving heart. But the booming thunder and the shrieking wind made him restless. Frank kept hearing the screams of his lost and violated wife. And strangely, he heard that filthy boy's screams as well.

_It wasn't me, brother! It wasn't me, I swear it! Let me out of here! Please sir, turn the music off! _

_What's that? Sorry, can't hear you over the music. Yes, I think I'll turn it up! Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, isn't it lovely? Really you must stop screaming . . ._

Pacing up and down in his drafty hallway, Frank wondered if there was any justice in the universe at all. Why should he, a just man, feel any guilt over what he had done? Evil men were haunted by nightmares and guilt, and he wasn't evil. He was good. He would kill that filthy boy again if he could.

Suddenly the angry, agitated intellectual heard a faint noise over the clamor of the storm.

Someone was knocking on the front door.

"Who's there? Damn you, speak up! What do you want?" Frank Alexander hoped it would be another hoodlum. This time he was ready. He had a gun in his desk drawer, a claw hammer within easy reach of the door. Even now, in his robe and slippers, he was prepared. The image of his helpless wife made him burn with shame. It fueled his undying rage.

"Please, sir, let me in! I've just been beaten and left here by the horrible police. I'm wet all through and it's so cold!"

"Bloody likely, isn't it?" Frank's smile was grim. He enjoyed making the wretched creature wait, checking carefully through the glass spy hole in the door. Whoever this was, they were certainly soaked to the skin and shivering. And that weak, squeaky voice, it sounded almost like . . .

"Good heavens, you're a woman!" The man in the bathrobe lifted the sopping wet figure into his arms. Drenched she was heavier than she looked, though her curvy figure was slim.

"My name is Janelle," she choked out, sputtering through swollen and bloody lips.

And then she fainted.

_A/N: If you've only seen the classic film by Stanley Kubrick, you're probably picturing Frank Alexander as a little old man in a wheelchair. But if you've read the original novel by Anthony Burgess, you'll remember that the writer was actually a strong, attractive man in his mid-thirties. Stick with this, droogies, and I promise you'll see plenty of nasty deceit, political intrigue, violence, and even a very weepy old-fashioned love story with lots of the old in-out in-out!_


	2. A Likely Story

_Chapter Two: A Likely Story_

"Well, if you must know, sir, it all began with the floods."

"Floods? What the devil are you talking about?" Frank didn't like the way the young criminal kept looking at him in such a wounded way with her big brown eyes. He'd taken her in, cleaned her up and gave her a bath, and now they were eating dinner in front of a roaring fire. It had all happened before, of course. But this time he refused to be taken in by the criminal in front of him. Janelle Wilkes was vermin, just like they boy who'd killed his wife. It didn't matter if her golden hair shone in the firelight or her beautiful brown eyes were haunted and sad. It was all fake. It was all an act. He hated her.

"The Australian Floods, sir. The Great Queensland Catastrophe of 2027." Janelle couldn't help feeling a bit sad when she remembered her drowned parents, but she made a point of blinking back her tears and sitting up extra straight in her chair. She could tell the rugged, outdoor-professor type with the curly brown hair and piercing gray glazzies wasn't in any mood for a weepy, boo-hooing devotchka. He thought she was a real grazhny killer, and he didn't even know the half of it. So she kept her soft and naturally seductive woman's goloss very flat and like matter-of-fact. "You must remember, sir. Global Warming caused the floods, 50,000 dead, more than half a million homeless. And most of us were children with no parents left. So the English government promised to help, us being an ex-colony and all of that. They shipped about five thousand of us, the Australian Flood Babies, right here to England."

"Yes, I remember now." Frank was getting interested in the young woman's story in spite of himself. "But there was a virus, wasn't there? Most of the Australian children took sick and died, and the children who did survive had . . . defects. Behavioral problems and the like. The government had to put them in quarantine, and many became violently insane. I suppose that's what got you started in a life of crime?"

"It wasn't like that, damn it!" Janelle got so angry that she felt a stab of pain right in her Gulliver. Instantly her voice turned soft, seductive. "I mean, it wasn't like that, sir. I'm sure you're aware that the government often lies. A few of the Australian children were taken away by the government, but it was for a secret project. It was like, cloning our genes, with a bit of behavior enhancement. This was because Australians have always been so much more, well superior to the English in physical development, taller and more athletic, with more speed and strength and stamina and . . ."

". . . and you're all so fantastically good-looking," Frank Alexander finished drily.

"That's right, sir." Janelle didn't smile. She crushed a bit of bread between her fingers. "Along with ten other girls, all tall and very good-looking blondes, I was taken away from the rest and locked away in a secret government laboratory. The idea was to use drugs and genetic engineering to create the perfect zhena. I mean the perfect wife."

"That's ridiculous," Frank scoffed. "What did they do, give you beauty treatments all day?"

"It wasn't like that, sir. It was like living hell. But I escaped." Janelle shrugged. "And that's when I became a criminal."


	3. Damsel In Distress

CHAPTER THREE: Damsel In Distress

"All right, dear boy, let me get this straight." The old woman on the other end of the telephone sounded as if she were trying not to laugh. "You've got a dangerous criminal sleeping in your guest room, and you think she's lying about her behavior being changed by the government's new cure. So you want to dump her at my house for a few days! Now Frank dear, is that any way to treat an old friend like me?"

"Damn it, Sheila, I never said she was a _violent_ criminal," Frank Alexander pulled down the kitchen shade to shut out the early morning light. "The newspapers said Janelle was caught luring older men into getting beat up by the young hoodlums she ran around with. Apparently several of them tried to make her rejoin the gang last night, and when she refused they beat her up. Her cure was supposed to make her helpful around the house, like a servant eager to please. She wouldn't be any danger to a tough old broad like you."

"And how exactly is she a danger to you, Frank?" The cracked but womanly voice on the other end of the phone sounded far too knowing.

"She reminds me of that vicious boy who killed my wife!" The writer snapped. "I don't want to lose my temper and do something terrible like – look, just help me on this, Sheila. Please." Frank choked off the flow of angry emotion as his young houseguest stumbled downstairs rubbing her eyes.

"What, is she awake at last?" Sheila gave an earthy chuckle. "I'll try to swing by later, Frank. After I do my shopping!"

"I'm glad to see you're up," Frank said, as he hung up on laughing Sheila. Suddenly he was all alone with his guest.

"Oh, sir, why didn't you wake me earlier? I would have made breakfast for you, and gladly!" The mild pain in Janelle's big brown eyes appeared genuine. Was it really the treatment? Or was it just an act designed to lull him into being a victim?

"There's no need for that," Frank said roughly, taking her by the arm and brusquely ushering her from the kitchen. "The tea is made. The eggs and sausages will be done in just a minute or two. Right now I have something for you to read."

"Yes, sir." Having this burly bolshy writer veck sort of glare at her and shove her out of his kitchen made Janelle angry – and when she got angry she quickly began to feel a bit sick. So it was a relief to fall down onto his tatty old sofa, and pick up a cup of tea and the bit of a manuscript he'd done overnight. Janelle heard him rabbiting away at his typewriter after she went to bed, his male fingers going _tap tap tap_ on the keys. But the shoom of his working late had not kept her awake. She had fallen very skorry into slumberland and even gotten a real horrorshow night's sleep. Now she wondered if this writer veck had slept even a wink. It was funny how she felt like pained by his stern frowning litso when he pushed her away. Was that part of the treatment?

For a couple of minootas the story Janelle read over on the sofa made no sense. It seemed there was this young devotchka boo-hooing about being taken from her home and turned into a slave, and men watching her with their glazzies and grabbing her with pawing rookers wherever she went. So Janelle really felt quite sad for this innocent devotchka, a damsel in distress as it might be, or a princess in a fairy tale. And then suddenly she realized it was really her! Very confusing, for this F. Alexander veck did not like her at all.

Just then there was a knock on the front door of his cottage!


	4. The Sexy Grandmother

CHAPTER FOUR:The Sexy Grandmother

"Ah, Sheila dear!" Frank Alexander ittied skorry to the door with an eager smile of welcome on his litso, while Janelle sat very still on the sofa in a pair of borrowed men's pajamas. Was she in danger? Did Frank really want to help her, or was it all just political activism to make himself famous? When the door flew open she couldn't help feeling tense.

"Frank, darling!" The woman kissing Frank at the door had a low sexy movie-star goloss, all husky and gritty and deep. But her short man-cut hair was silver-gray, and when she turned and beheld Janelle on the sofa her broad grinning litso was like an old woman's litso, all lined and wrinkled with like years and years of living.

"Well, look who's here!" This starry old like sexy grandmother creeched, coming into the parlor. "So this is the latest dangerous criminal Frank's rescued from the police?"

"How do you do?" Janelle stood skorry to offer her hand, having to be a perfect young lady at all times to keep horrible pains and sickness from bashing away at her real nasty. "My name is Janelle," she added, in a soft and like timid goloss.

"Sheila Winters here," the old soomka smecked, taking Janelle's hand and like crushing it in her meaty old paw. "Good heavens, Frank, the girl must be six feet tall. What a figure. And that hair! Holy Toledo, they sure don't make blondes like you back in Brooklyn."

"Sheila is from America, originally," Frank explained, as they sat down to breakfast. "She's a writer on women's issues."

"That's right! I grew up in the States, but I came here after those damned religious fanatics took over the government. They're as bad as the mind-control creeps you've got here!"

"I hate the government," Janelle said, feeling a bit sick. There were like bolshy globs of eggs and sausage on the table, all steaming away, and this Women's Issues lady wasted no time in like piling up her plate and wolf wolf wolfing it down, still govoreeting away in her like sexy voice.

"Well, I don't blame you honey," she said, chewing away smack-smack on her eggs. "After all the things those pigs did to you – Frank's told me _everything_ – we really want to help. But of course the main thing now is to get your story out there and expose the filthy government."

"But I don't want my story out there!" Janelle had eaten only a bit of dry toast with tea, not having much of an appetite. Now she like crushed the rest of it in her trembling fingers. "Please, don't plaster my picture all over, like they did on my release. I hate the way everyone looks at me like I'm some sort of wind-up doll, made for sex."

"Yes, like a clockwork orange." Frank Alexander was looking at her with a queer sort of guilty look on his rugged litso.

"I don't know what that means, sir," Janelle said, her big brown eyes all innocent.

"It means we won't let anyone take advantage of you." Sheila patted Janelle's hand, very protective and like motherly.

And then tok-tok-tok came another knock on the front door!


	5. Shake A Leg!

CHAPTER FIVE: Shake A Leg!

"Zachary Boyle Dolan, please allow me to introduce Miss Janelle Wilkes." Frank Alexander had a very sour look on his rugged litso, like introducing Janelle to his bald, fat little friend was not something he wanted but was just forced into.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," said Janelle, standing up all ladylike and sticking out her soft white rooker, still very polite and not wanting to make like enemies. But she could viddy quite clear that this Dolan veck was like an unwanted visitor.

"Well, well, this is a stroke of luck!" Dolan squeezed Janelle's hand in his hot rooker, his litso all excited, an oily smile like pasted on his greasy fat litso. "Just yesterday I was showing Frank your picture in the paper. We know how you've suffered, dear, and we also know how to _use_ your horrible suffering to make the state pay. The thing to do now . . ."

"The thing to do now is to let Janelle alone," creeched Sheila Winters. The sexy starry old woman had like already blocked Z.B. Dolan's path with one beefy old rooker, and she wrapped the other one skorry around Janelle's slim waist. "The two of us were just going upstairs to get dressed, weren't we, dear? And then to my place, right nearby. A little peace and quiet, yes, with no silly men around at all!"

Z.B. Dolan stepped back, but with a nasty grin on his litso. "This is your idea, eh Frank? Removing all temptation? Good idea. After all, we know how easily you can be carried away!"

Frank winced, but his gray glazzies were hard and cold. "Better watch yourself then, Zachary. Even for a decent man, violence can get to be a habit."

This was said in a very grim, chilling goloss, so that Janelle actually shuddered as she looked back over her shoulder. But then the rugged writer veck caught her eye and smiled, sad but like caring. "Upstairs now. Go with Sheila, and rest."

"Yes, sir." Janelle paused. "Sir, if there's anything the matter . . . or anything I can do . . ."

"Come on, sweetheart. Shake a leg!" Sheila Winters gave Janelle a smack on the behind, hurrying her up to her room.

"That was very foolish, sugar pie. Don't ever act like you owe a man something – even if you do!" The old soomka gave a smeck as she dispensed her advice, perching on the rumpled bed in the corner. This was where Janelle had slept the night before, with Frank watching over her. It had been a real horrorshow sleep for her, all like safe and sound.

"But Mr. Alexander would never hurt me, would he?" Janelle frowned at her pale litso in the mirror. She was already hurrying into her platties, these being tan slacks and high heels that like showed off her long legs or nogas, and also a sleeveless blouse with lace in front, all white and demure but also lifting and pushing out her real horrorshow groodies.

"He doesn't _want_ to hurt you," Sheila told her. "But that doesn't mean he won't. Be careful not to underestimate him, Janelle. He's a good man, but he's not a saint. And he hasn't been with a woman since his wife died."

"Oh." Suddenly Janelle just wanted to leave real skorry. Her rookers shook and trembled as she buttoned up her blouse.


	6. Frontier Justice

CHAPTER SIX: Frontier Justice

Janelle heaved the heavy bag of wet leaves into the dustbin, then wiped her grazzy hands or rookers on the backs of her tan slacks. Her fancy platties were already a mess and she'd been staying at Sheila's malenky cottage for less than a day!

"Sheila?" When she ittied into the dark, vonny hall, which had smells of old woman and cat fur and like very starry old gazettas, the young re-conditioned criminal could slooshy a very wheezy snorty sound of snoring coming from the malenky little sitting room or parlor.

Tall, blonde Janelle had to smeck when she viddied the parlor. Malenky old Sheila was snoring out out out in this tatty arm-chair, with her silver goloss all fanned out and her Gulliver thrown back and her rot like hanging open. When she was awake Sheila was like some starry general, giving orders and discipline, a real take-charge personality. But when she was in the land of dreams she was really not so intimidating after all. This was a very great relief, Janelle not having the power to argue or fight or even to creech no no no to like a single order after her horrible horrible treatment.

Now the first thing Janelle did was have a skorry bite to eat from the tray on the table in the sitting room. Next was to pick up all of the cookies and cakes and tea things, and take them into the kitchen and wash and dry every saucer and cup real horrorshow. All this was like her treatment, the sickness pricking her to be the perfect little household helper even when her new mistress was snoring in an easy chair and could not like viddy all of her helpful actions.

By the time she ittied back into the sitting room, yawning and tucking a stray wisp of golden hair behind her ooko or ear, Janelle could look out the grazzy little front window and viddy that the chill autumn day was near about spent, the bolshy red sun sinking lower and lower over the nagoy trees. There was no more work to do and so the tall Australian girl stretched out on the soft, deep-cushioned sofa besides her snoring companion and looked for a mag or gazetta to read.

Scattered on the tea table were newspapers from the last few days, these having her own lovely pale litso like splattered on the front page. And there were slovos with the pictures, like THE FACE OF MODERN CRIME and THIS BEAUTY _IS_ THE BEAST and IS EVIL ONLY SKIN DEEP?

"_Oh!"_ Viddying all this actually made Janelle feel a bit sick. So she dropped the gazetta and picked up an American news mag, this one several years old, and lo and behold there was a story by her friend and protector, Sheila Winters.

It seemed that there was a movement to have young criminals in America get like medical treatments, much like what Janelle had suffered through, and this would solve the problem of violent crime. But what Sheila was saying in her like opinion piece, was that there was no curing evil. "These inner-city gangs are not human, they are vermin," she was creeching, in a very like Old West type of goloss. "Me, I'd bring back castration for rapists and hanging for killers. Any kid who goes bad should swing quick. Frontier justice!"

Janelle looked over, and viddied that her new friend was still snoring away. She tried to tell herself that crusty old Sheila was just govoreeting about other criminals, and not her. But her rookers were trembling and shaking like bezoomny as she put down the American magazine. Janelle felt a malenky bit like some deer in the forest, surrounded by hunters, not knowing which way to run. Who could she really trust?

The beautiful Australian devotchka shut her frightened brown glazzies, and tried to just forget all this and relax. She was certain a tough old soomka like Sheila would never hurt her.

But it was a long time before she dozed off.


	7. Background Check

CHAPTER SEVEN: Background Check

"Clothes!" This was the first slovo out of the old woman's rot when Janelle staggered into the kitchen the next morning. "You need proper clothes, my girl, if you're to avoid more trouble with leering brutes like Z.B. Dolan and Frank Alexander. This morning we take you shopping."

"But I don't have any pretty Polly for new platties!" Janelle had not had a very horrorshow night's sleep. She kept viddying herself as a criminal in the Old West, with starry old Sheila creeching about Frontier Justice and like stringing her up. Now she reached with a shaky rooker for the bolshy mug of steaming morning chai that Sheila had poured for her.

"Eh? What? Pretty Polly wants her platters? Speak English, girl!" Sheila's starry old wrinkled litso folded into like a million lines when she frowned, very severe and like forbidding.

"Sorry, sorry!" the devotchka creeched, her soft velvet-brown glazzies full of like dismay. "I haven't any money for new clothes, Mrs. Winters. Please forgive." Janelle sipped her hot tea, feeling sickness and pain in her pounding Gulliver. Her horrible anti-violence treatment made her want to be helpful all the time, and to feel sick if she was even a tiny bit rude.

"Don't be ridiculous, child," smecked this old woman now, patting Janelle on the pletcho or shoulder with her dry old rooker. "You can be sure that if you're going to be useful to the movement, we will take very good care of you. And as it happens, I know a thrift shop that's full of lovely old clothes at a very low price. The owners are quite good friends of mine, and very politically enlightened, too."

"Yes, I see. How lovely! But how am I to be useful . . ." Puzzled Janelle could not govoreet any more, for the telephone on the table went _brrring brrring brrring_ real loud.

"Sheila Winters," the old woman gruffed into the phone. "What? Oh, hello Zachary. Yes, off to do a bit of shopping. No, I don't think that . . . oh, you are? Well, good for you. You tell Frank whatever you like. Yes, he will. Good-bye!"

"Is something wrong?" Janelle asked, in her soft like lady's goloss, seeing the old woman slam down the phone.

"Something is wrong with _men_," Sheila growled. "Can you imagine, that fool Z.B. Dolan told me to be careful while I've got you under my roof? He says he's doing a background check to find out who you used to know, to make sure you're not a _danger_ to our political movement. As if the whole purpose of the movement wasn't to help poor victims like you in the first place!"

"Oh! Yes, a victim, Mrs. Winters, that's just what I am!" Janelle felt very relieved, viddying now that Sheila wanted to like protect her from all the vonny grazzy men in the world. But then she got a skorry picture of Frank Alexander, the strong and stern writer veck with the intense blue glazzies. "Did Mr. Dolan say he wanted to tell Frank about my past?"

"Yes, and I told him to go right ahead. If there _were_ anything funny about you Frank would have sensed it, sweetheart. He'd take care of you the old-fashioned way, outside the law. Lie to him and you'd be better off back in jail . . . or dead!"

"Oh, sweet merciful Bog." The golden-haired devotchka felt like running as fast her long, shapely nogas would carry her. But where could she go still dressed in borrowed pajamas?

She needed new platties – and plenty of pretty Polly.


	8. Trouble At Tulane's

CHAPTER EIGHT: Trouble At Tulane's

"I hope you don't mind my asking you this, Sheila," Janelle govoreeted, in a very timid and like hesitant goloss, as her starry old protector was driving her into the city to shop for new platties or clothes, "but did you really mean all those things you wrote in that American magazine article?"

"What things? What article are you talking about?" Sheila frowned, and honk-honked at a pair of motorcycle riders. "Get out of the way, you bastards. God-damned punk kids!"

Janelle flinched at the loud shoom, not liking the screeching tires nor the look on the old woman's angry wrinkled litso. "Just what you said about criminals, not deserving to live and needing to be hung or strung up if they do bad. Because I'm a criminal, but I'm not like that anymore, really I'm not!"

"There, there, of course you're not." Sheila took her glazzies off the road long enough to see the like beseeching look on Janelle's frightened litso. "You're going to help the movement, and we're going to take very good care of you."

"But how am I to help you, if I can't do or say anything for myself without this horrible feeling of wanting to be sick? And why do you want to help me, when all the other criminals you just want to string up and hang?"

"Honey, the criminals I was writing about back in New York were all men. Violent _male_ criminals deserve everything I said, but _you_ could never hurt anybody." Sheila smecked a bit, and then added, "All men are pigs, except the ones in our movement. And sometimes I'm not so sure about them!"

"Sometimes I'm not so sure about me," Janelle whispered.

Deep down she wanted to tell all the things she had done. But this starry old Sheila just looked at her very puzzled. Then she said, "look, honey, it's the oldest trick in the book for men to make a woman _doubt_ herself. That's how they keep us quiet! Whatever they made you do, those bad hoodlums or whatever, just remember _they____made____you____do____it_. Please jettison all unnecessary feelings of guilt. That's the only way to free your mind and to help the movement. And you do want to help the movement, right?"

"Right right right," Janelle said skorry, her golden blonde Gulliver going up down up down. Sheila wanted to help her, but she didn't want to know her. Because if a devotchka like Janelle really was just no good, a real badiwad, then what these movement women would have to face was the fact that badness was not just for men but for the other shop too.

Now when they arrived at Tulane's Thrift Shop, the platties they had for sale were not at all the elegant slacks and white lace blouse look that Janelle preferred. Instead they had cast-off army jackets, brightly colored gypsy skirts, and scarves and shawls from places like Peru, all very cheap.

"Well, that should be enough to get you through the winter, don't you think, my dear?" Sheila finally said, very late in the chill wintery afternoon, yawning behind her beefy fingers.

"Yes, thank you. I'm sure this will be fine," Janelle replied. And she squeezed her soft red rot into like a very tired smile.

"Oh, but you guys can't leave before you try the cream of the crop," Tulane creeched. "Johnny and me grew it _special!_"

Janelle knew she wasn't talking about clothes.


	9. Horrible Nightmare

CHAPTER NINE: Horrible Nightmare

_Slop-slap, slop-slap, slap slap slap . . ._

Viddying the windshield wipers go back and forth, back and forth, Janelle Wilkes felt her weary glazzies starting to shut. She was riding home late in Sheila's starry crappy old automobile, a bit sleepy after shopping all day for new clothes or platties. They'd hit all the bargain shops. But at Tulane's there had been more than just platties for sale.

"Take another toke, honey," Her friend purred, offering her the joint they'd been sharing all through the drive. The two of them had gotten along real horrorshow all day, chatting away just like a mother and daughter on a special outing.

"Oh, no, I couldn't. No more for me, thank you." The two women smiled at each other. Janelle's golden Gulliver was resting on Sheila's firm pletcho, her glazzies sinking lower and lower as the windshield wipers slopped back and forth.

Suddenly they slooshied sirens. Startled, Janelle dragged her big velvet-brown glazzies open at once, her long lashes fluttering away all delicate like a pair of frightened butterflies. A police car full of rozzes was right behind them!

"Cops. What a bunch of losers." The starry old Yankee woman did not seem frightened or poogly at all. But she did throw her bit of weed out the window skorry, the lit joint dying out _ssssss_ as it vanished into the rainy night.

"Are they going to arrest us?" Janelle's goloss wavered and shook, just like her trembling rookers. She was trying to tidy up her hair and button her blouse at the same time. But her slim white rookers were shaking, very clumsy at both jobs.

"Nonsense! They haven't a shred of evidence." As the rozzes approached the car the old soomka took Janelle's hand and squeezed, hard and firm, like giving her courage. "No worries, girl. Just let Sheila do the talking!"

"Good evening, ladies. Out for a little drive? Not a very good night for it." The policeman was a hulking shape in the dark.

"We're on our way home, officer. Is something the matter?" As she rolled down the driver's side window, Sheila's sharp schoolteachery goloss cracked just a malenky bit.

"I'll say there is," smecked this big bolshy chief rozz. "You were driving on the wrong side of the road."

"Oh, that." Sheila gave a bit of a giggle. But she didn't budge. "Well, I am an American, you know. We drive on the _right_ side of the road. But thank you for the warning, officer. I'll be careful now, so my friend and I can get home safe."

"Silent one isn't she?" The other rozz tap-tapped on the passenger side window, scaring Janelle half to death. "Are you an American too, my lovely?"

"Oh! I am . . . I mean I'm not . . . I mean I haven't . . ." Janelle rolled down her window skorry enough. But her soft gentle goloss came out scared, like a tiny mouse's terrified squeak. If she said one thing wrong, she just knew these two brutal rozzes would pull her from the car and tolchock her real brutal and nasty. Her treatment made her helpless, unable to kick or scratch or even creech for help. So these bratchnies would beat her proper, ruin her lovely litso and then pound her zoobies right down her throat. And then they would . . .

"I smell grass," smecked the young rozz, his leering litso horribly close to hers. "I think blondie needs a strip search!"

"I'm the driver! You talk to me!" Like a mama grizzly protecting her cub, Sheila banged her wrinkled old rooker down fierce on the steering wheel. The honking horn made the two tough rozzes jump. Janelle would have wanted to smeck at that if she weren't so poogly. Instead she felt ready to sick at being trapped in such a horrible nightmare!

"Get out of the car, now!" The chief rozz didn't like being yelled at by an old soomka. He yanked Sheila out of the car, twisting her rooker so the poor old thing cried out in pain.

"Please don't!" Janelle creeched, feeling sick as the other rozz pulled her out into the cold rain too. "Don't hurt her, please! I'll do anything you say, anything at all . . ."

"Do anything we say? I'll say you will." The leering young rozz shoved Janelle back into a tree, slamming her delicate shoulders or pletchoes real nasty against the hard bark. Then he click-clicked a pair of steel bracelets into place, locking her rookers behind the tree. She was trapped.

"Pigs!" Sheila screamed, from the other side of the car. "Filthy, no-good pigs! If there was a war I'd pray you got your legs blown off, and I'd cheer when you came home crippled! Even if you were begging in the street I'd spit on you!"

"Sheila, please!" Janelle whimpered. But the chief rozz only smecked and gave her friend and protector a lightly mocking tolchock right in her angry creeching rot.

"Shut your stinking black hole, grandma. This isn't the USA. The global peace protests are over – your side lost!"

"It's you young filth in uniform who deserve to lose," Sheila shrieked. "Every stinking last one of you, in every war ever fought. You can't think. You don't feel. You don't listen to lovely Beethoven or read great books like Pride and Prejudice. You only go into the military because you're not smart, not rich, not _directed_ enough for college."

The chief rozz smecked, and back-handed her nice and gentle on the ooko or ear. Then he reached in the car, and pulled out a bolshy straw shopping bag. "Don't feel too bad, grandma. There's plenty of us did die, in plenty of wars, while your lot was out shopping." He sniffed at her bag, just like a filthy doggie. "Pah! Your things stink of marijuana too. A strip search for both our suspects, eh Rex?"

"Hold on, Billy Boy." The young rozz was shining a pocket torch into Janelle's glazzies, the light blinding her real horrorshow. "I think I know this one. She's a test subject. The government's going to be checking on her. Best leave her to the higher-ups."

"Right right," said chief rozz Billy Boy. "Still, no reason we can't have a bit of fun with this one. So it's all about college, eh grandma?" He pulled back his beefy bolshy rooker. "Let's hear a lecture on pride and prejudice!"

This time Sheila didn't crack back with any slovos or curses.

Instead she screamed quite loud.

_A/N: This is a very nasty chapter, but I want to thank two very nice young devotchkas, The Weasley Boys and LetItBeXO, for inspiring me to continue this like chilling tale!_


	10. Quiet Fury

CHAPTER TEN: Quiet Fury

_Blip! Blip-blip! Blip! Blip-blip! Blip . . . blip . . . _

Viddying the blue point of light bounce up and down, up and down, on the bolshy screen next to her friend's hospital bed, Janelle felt her tired, swollen, bloodshot brown glazzies well up skorry with fresh tears.

Sheila was not dead, oh no. She had not snuffed it. But one of the filthy rozzes who had stopped them on the road had tolchocked the poor old dear a bit too hard on the Gulliver. Now Sheila was out. Not dead, not snoring away in sleep land, but just like out out out.

And no veck could say whether she would ever wake up again.

"Breakfast." Frank Alexander had ittied into the room quiet while Janelle wept boohoo by her friend's bedside. Now he laid his firm male rooker on her slim pletcho or shoulder.

"I don't want anything." Janelle sniffled, wiping away tears. She kept staring at Sheila's litso, all wrinkled and lifeless.

"Eat, girl. You must eat. You've got to keep yourself going." Frank steered Janelle out of the ghastly malenky room where Sheila was lying in a coma, all hooked up to machines, down the hall to a white-walled hospital cafeteria.

"I should have done more for her." They sat down at a quiet corner table, well away from all the hospital traffic. Janelle began sipping slow and careful from a bolshy hot mug of very strong hospital tea.

"Nonsense, my dear. You've already done more than your share." Frank Alexander gave her a tired smile, very droogy and sympathetic. "Frankly, it's a miracle you were able to free yourself from those police handcuffs and run for help. You're a very brave young lady."

"It was nothing. And anyway, that's not what I meant." Janelle was frowning as she picked up her knife and fork. This was really more of a late lunch than a proper breakfast, for the girl now viddied that the hour was well past noon. Janelle had not had a real horrorshow sleep the night before.

"You've got to focus on your own health for the next few days, my dear. Those cuts and bruises need time to heal." Frank watched her chewing away, a pleased look on his rugged litso. "That's better. Eat and get strong again. When Sheila recovers you can help her around the house."

"But I want more than that. I want justice for Sheila!" Janelle stabbed a fat and juicy sausage, feeling sick when she viddied herself stabbing those dirty rozzes instead. "Remember when she talked about using me in mass meetings and interviews to talk about the horrible brutal corrupt government? Well, I'm ready to do that now. Because I see now that it's not _just_ about me. The rozzes are hurting _everyone_, not just criminal types. It's got to stop!"

Frank was staring at her in a peculiar way. "Janelle Wilkes, you really are something. You almost remind me of . . . but she's gone now, poor girl."

"Gone, sir?" Janelle knew Frank had been married before, but she had slooshied only bits and pieces. Had his zhena been young? Pretty? Had she been hurt by the brutal rozzes too? Janelle was really very curious about her.

"Never mind who's gone," mumble-chumbled the rugged writer veck, glaring fierce at Janelle from across the table. "Find some other way to help Sheila. I don't want you getting involved with Z.B. Dolan and his crew. I don't want them hurting you like . . . like the police did last night."

"Well, there are newspapers, aren't there?" Janelle was puzzled and hurt by Frank's moody behavior. She reached for a lomtick of toast. "We can try the mainstream media. And surely the internet would like to hear my story!"

"Mm. I hope it's not the same story you told me last night. Remember, poor Sheila was driving on the wrong side of the road. The car reeked of grass. And she gave the police nothing but a foul lip and an American attitude when they stopped her. That story won't help her – it'll help the government go on just as it is."

"But she was trying to protect me!"

"Perhaps she was," Frank sighed, in a like regretful goloss. "But don't forget, Sheila's the one who chose to take you to a shady shop and buy drugs. She was acting out like a teenager. And that anti-male anger of hers goes way back."

"So you're saying Sheila brought all this on herself?" Janelle stood up from her chair, her shrill goloss making all the sick and dying lewdies in the hospital caff look her way. She was getting angry, but she had to watch that, so she just smiled. "Maybe you think I deserve the same? Maybe you'd have done the same! Maybe next time you'd like to stand in for the police, and give me a good hard . . ."

"Be quiet, damn you!" Frank was on his feet now, for he had two fine healthy nogas of his own. He had horrorshow strong rookers, too, and he took Janelle in a tight grip, pulling her close, his gray glazzies flashing like bezoomny. Yet he kept his goloss low, controlled but full of like quiet fury, so the sick and the hospital orderlies would not slooshy or interfere.

"I'm not Sheila, you foolish child. Can't you see that? I won't allow you to put yourself in danger."

"Allow me? What gives you the right . . ." Janelle felt too razdraz to say another slovo. The two of them just stood there breathing hard, viddying each other right up close. Their rots were now very close together, their flushed litsos almost touching.

And then Frank kissed her, right on her trembling red rot!

_A/N: Did everyone notice that Frank has two fine healthy nogas (legs) of his own? In the novel by Anthony Burgess, the writer veck is quite young and strong. He misses his wife, and when he learns the truth Alex is afraid of him. He is not, I repeat not, a silly old babbling fool in a wheelchair!_


	11. The Private Wing

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Private Wing

Oh, it was pure radosty heaven, all choodnessy and wonderful like holy joy sent by God or Bog and all his angels.

Janelle's glazzies shut with the bliss of it all as Frank crushed her to him, his protecting rookers around her so tight, her groodies just like rub rub rubbing his manly chest. And oh, the warm softness of his lips on hers!

That was when she slooshied like a snicker, some young and pimply-faced hospital orderly having a bit of a smeck at the older man and the blonde. And then she remembered that they were not alone, oh no. The two of them were standing by a side table in the hospital caff, in full view of like leering smecking orderlies and wheezy drooling patients.

Janelle did not like being viddied in her hospital platties doing private vesches like kissing. It reminded her of how she had like lured rich older men to their doom on the street, with so-called droogs like BillyBoy waiting and watching. The brutal malchicks would tolchock the rich old men and leave them lying senseless in their own red red krovvy, and Janelle would rob them quick and horrorshow while they lay out out out. And of course thinking of all that now made her feel sick.

But what made her sick also was to viddy that dear dear Frank was clueless about who she was. He was so kind and good he did not viddy that inside she was a grazhny criminal. He just viddied her scared litso and big brown glazzies and decided she was like a victim of the modern age, just like his first wife or zhena who had died. So then Janelle thought of pulling away, shoving free, but that was almost like fighting.

And that made her want to be sick most of all!

"Urgh . . . urgh . . . urk!" This was Janelle, backing away from Frank with one rooker like clutching her slim white throat.

"Janelle, what's wrong?" Frank's gray glazzies were so full of sympathy, trust and tenderness, or some such emotional cal. He thought she needed him to make it all better, when really he made it all so much worse. His genuine goodness made her feel sick inside in a way no treatment ever could.

"I can't . . . I can't . . ."

"Those bloody bastards." Frank's low deep goloss was like quiet and deadly. Janelle viddied quite clear that he was angry at the doctor vecks in the treatment mesto. He thought she was unable to make love because of the treatment.

Janelle wanted to explain that it wasn't the treatment, just the opposite in fact. The treatment made her want to fall back in his arms and let him do what men liked to do best. But she would never let the doctors control that part of her, not when she was beginning to have real feelings of her own for the first time in her whole filthy cally criminal jeezny.

And so she ran.

After a minoota or two of running blindly down the hall, with vecks wheeling stretchers creeching "eh eh eh" or else very starry dying vecks looking at her without viddying her at all, Janelle found herself in a different part of the hospital. This was like a private wing, very posh and expensive, with thick plush carpeting on the floors. There were long black sofas and leather upholstered easy chairs in all the like waiting rooms. Even the mags and gazettas were more upscale and sophisticated, not trash like _Worldsport_, _Sinny_, and _Goal_, but more like _French Fashion_ and _Investment Weekly_.

Janelle grabbed a fashion mag and sat down skorry, burying her litso between the covers. She was a bit poogly of being discovered and sent back to her room. Frank might want to talk, and she was not ready to put her feelings into slovos. It would be different if she could sit down with Sheila and have a real horrorshow chat, just the two of them and no men. But Sheila was lying in another room down the hall in a coma. No veck seemed to know if she would ever wake up again.

"Sssh."

Thinking of Sheila, Janelle had started to boo-hoo a bit, though not too loud. But the slim, high-maintenance looking woman in white sitting across from her seemed to have very keen ookos or ears. The next time Janelle sniffled the sharp made a sharp clicking noise with her red-painted rot, annoyed and like impatient. So then Janelle tried to stifle the flow of tears, but she couldn't choke back a blubbery gasp.

"Tissue?"

"Thanks." Janelle took the tissue, and gave the haughty, fashionable older woman a weak, watery sort of smile. She didn't want to be rude, for rudeness made her feel sick. But she didn't like the curious look on the woman's perfect litso. Or the sudden knowing gleam in her cold blue glazzies.

"I say, my dear. Aren't you Janelle Wilkes? The young woman who was recently in the paper?"

"No," Janelle said rudely. Sour nausea seized her stomach, and her aching Gulliver began to pound and throb nasty. Rude behavior made her sick. Lying made her sick as well.

"There, there." The raven-haired woman in white was all like sympathy now, leaning over to pat Janelle's knee. "I didn't mean to pry, my dear. It's just that my husband was in government for years, and we're still quite active politically. Perhaps we could help you?"

"You're very kind," Janelle said, in her most ladylike goloss. She was rubbing her throbbing Gulliver with her fingertips. Just then the door to the head doctor's inner office opened. There was the shoom of male voices coming out together.

"Sir Humphrey, for a man your age you really are in tip-top condition. But if you really want to follow through on your plans you need to lose some weight, and cut back on the brandy and cigars as well."

"Of course, doctor. Margaret and I are determined to make a go of it this time. Isn't that right, my dear?"

"Oh, I couldn't agree more," purred the woman in white. "Darling, allow me to introduce Miss Janelle Wilkes."

"How do you do, sir?" Janelle had meant to say in a ladylike way that she needed to be ittying back to her own room to lie down. But this Sir Humphrey was not what she expected. He was a big bolshy veck, but not muscular like Frank. He was old and very fat, with twinkling blue glazzies and a round cheerful sort of red litso. He was smiling at her, and then it seemed Janelle was offering her hand and smiling back.


	12. Partners

CHAPTER TWELVE: Partners

The next few days passed skorry. Janelle was busy visiting poor Sheila, or govoreeting with doctor vecks, or doing a malenky bit of like physical therapy for a sprain or muscle pull deep down in her lower back. This last vesch was from the brutal rozzes knocking her around, O sisters.

But what made the time fly by was having visits from her new friends, Sir Humphrey and Lady Margaret. Both of them were kind and droogy and considerate, but it was old Sir Humphrey who told real horrorshow stories and could always make her smeck. Janelle was sitting up in bed smecking her pretty little Gulliver off one morning when a broad-shouldered male figure appeared in the doorway.

"Frank!" she creeched, surprised and like delighted at first. But then she viddied the stern frown on his rugged litso.

"I didn't know you had company. Sir Humphrey Babcock, I believe?" Frank's goloss was polite, but Janelle viddied at once that he knew and did not like the starry old fat man.

"Quite right," Sir Humphrey rumbled, pleased at being like recognized. "Sir Humphrey Babcock, former Secretary of the Interior. And who might you be, sir?"

"Frank Alexander," Janelle's true friend and like protector said now. "We've met before, sir. I wrote quite a few articles about you in the Free Press."

"Darling, that's that _horrible_ left-wing magazine that printed such _nasty_ things about you during the last election." Posh Lady Margaret shot Frank a venomous look, her stunning blue glazzies just like laser beams.

"The truth is often nasty, my lady." Frank's gray glazzies shot lightning bolts right back at her.

"Frank has been so good to me and Sheila!" Janelle creeched. When lewdies began to quarrel it made her feel sick, so she always played peacemaker. "When I was first released from _that place_, Frank gave me a roof over my Gulliver. My head I mean!" The scared blonde ptitsa gave a nervous little smeck, but the others smecked not at all. "Of course I moved in with Sheila right after Frank found me. Most of my platties – my clothes I mean – are at her place."

"Not anymore," Frank interrupted, his litso like troubled. "This morning I stopped in, meaning to put things right for when you ladies come home. Somebody broke in to Sheila's. Everything's been torn apart, emptied, clothes all scattered – like they were looking for something. Or someone."

"Oh, Bog in heaven." Janelle felt so poogly that she felt a bit sick. Suddenly she remembered the brutal rozzes shining the light in her scared litso, smecking loud like at some joke. _They knew who she was!_

"Filthy criminals." Lady Margaret put her expensively manicured rooker down gentle on Janelle's slim shoulders. "There, there, darling. It's probably just one of those filthy teen gangs that have been in all the papers lately. You'll be safe with Humphrey and me. You won't mind staying at Rotherwood Manor for a few days?"

"No, no!" Picturing Rex and Billyboy hunting her, wanting to finish what they started, made Janelle want to itty off with Sir Humphrey and Lady Margaret at once. But then she viddied Frank standing by the door all rugged and loyal.

"May I speak to Mr. Alexander alone for a minute, please?" she asked, in her lady's goloss. The sickness and the need to obey made her extra polite.

"Of course, my dear. You and your friend say good-bye. Meantime Margaret and I will have the car brought around. Lovely day for a drive, what?" Sir Humphrey gave a jolly, fat man's guff and slapped Frank Alexander on the shoulder. Then he and his elegant, well-dressed zhena ittied away, leaving Frank and Janelle alone together.

"Janelle, I just want to say . . ."

"Frank, please let me explain . . ."

"I behaved like a beast the other day." Frank rushed to the bed skorry, sitting down and taking both Janelle's cold rookers in his warm strong grip. "I care for you deeply, darling. But I understand that you can't even think of being close to a man without horrible horrible feelings of sickness. I was a beast to take advantage of you in your present state!"

"Appy polly loggies to you too, sir." Janelle smiled sorrowful. "I didn't mean to itty off . . . to run away like I did. But I'm afraid you're the one who doesn't understand. About my treatment, that is. You see, it was done a bit differently, with all different responses like wired into my plot and Gulliver." Janelle felt her lovely litso start to glow red like a furnace, very hot. She began govoreeting slow and careful, explaining every horrible detail in her soft lady's goloss.

"So without choice, love is as mechanical as a clockwork orange," Frank said at last, after Janelle's weepy tale was finished. "Since you can't say no, saying yes feels empty."

"Yes, sir." A single tear rolled down her cheek, landing plop in her lap.

"Oh, you poor girl. You poor brave girl." Frank crushed her in his rookers, hugging her close and tight, like giving comfort. It was so blissful and warm, being held by him. Yet Janelle knew he would not like carry it too far. And sure enough, Frank stopped right then and held her at arm's length, studying her pale tear-stained litso. "This is why you want to leave, isn't it? You don't trust yourself to be around me."

"No, sir." Janelle forced a smile. "My feelings are mine, and no veck is going to make me give in before I'm ready. Not even a brave, smart, choodnessy veck like you!"

Frank frowned, not falling for the flattery at all. "You're far stronger than I am, Janelle. You've been through far more."

"Tortures of the damned, sir. Tortures of the damned. But I don't just want a cure, Bog help us all. I want answers."

"And you're strong enough to find the answers, yes. I see that now. But it will be dangerous, darling. Sir Humphrey and Lady Margaret are not what they appear."

"I know," Janelle nodded. "That's why I need your help. We only have a few minutes, Frank. You need to tell me what to look for, how to dig up the truth. This isn't just about answers for me. It's about justice. Justice for Sheila."

"For Sheila!"

The two of them shook hands like partners, two detectives on the same case. Sam Spade and Miles Archer, as it might be.

But to Janelle it felt as thrilling and romantic as a kiss.


	13. Homecoming

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Homecoming

"Ah, here we are," purred a low, like cultured female goloss. "Wake up, Janelle, and take a look at your new home. Rotherwood Manor is the loveliest country house in England. The park was designed by Christopher Wren in 1687!"

"Park? Rotherwood? Huh?" When Janelle lifted her golden Gulliver and dragged open her glazzies she viddied only trees and dark. She yawned, covering her rot polite and ladylike with her fingers. Rude behavior made her feel sick.

"Humphrey, my love, we've arrived. Wake up, my dear. Wake up!"

"AWW-AAUUUGGHHMMM!" Sir Humphrey's yawn was like the roar of some bolshy hippopotamus. "Goodness, are we here already? Janelle and I were just having a spot of lunch!"

"That was hours ago, darling." Lady Margaret sounded almost bored with listening to her sleepy husband, sisters. But Janelle could not help going _tee-hee-hee_ behind her fingers in the back seat of the long black limousine.

Really it did seem like only moments ago that they had been wining and dining at this posh, expensive Tudor-style inn. Sir Humphrey had been telling stories, mumbling and chumbling about roasted stags and plum puddings and In The Days Of Harry The Eighth, my dear. His tales of royal feasting made Janelle throw back her Gulliver and smeck out loud, ha ha ha, so the rich starry dining lewdies all turned around and stared at her. Then she felt a malenky bit sick, and this was from being noisy and rude in public. But at least when she smecked she forgot all about Frank and the rozzes and poor poor Sheila lying out out out in her hospital bed.

Now when the meal was over, the three of them back on the road in this bolshy luxury limousine, Janelle hoped to slooshy more from Sir Humphrey about his own jeezny. Why had he gone into politics? Why could a jolly old veck like Sir Humphrey not be more droogy with her own precious Frank?

Instead Sir Humphrey had gone off skorry to sleepland. Janelle was sleepy too, but she could not shut her glazzies, not yet, for in the car Lady Margaret had questions for her.

These were not questions about her criminal jeezny, sisters. Lady Margaret did not ask about the brutal violence and the old in-out in-out with naughty malchicks who used Janelle as bait to lure poor old men to their doom. Instead she began asking about the state of Janelle's health, if she had ever had this sickness or that, like probing for any weakness or illness that might have been passed down by her family tree. All of this was very puzzling, since Janelle was feeling real horrorshow and had only been hurt a little during that brutal beating by the rozzes which put poor poor Sheila in a coma.

"Of course, dear, I know all about that." Lady Margaret waved her slim white rooker, like pushing away all poor Sheila's suffering and Janelle's horrible feelings of guilt. "We're very fortunate that you weren't more badly damaged than you were. Of course we'll continue your physical therapy once you've settled in at Rotherwood, and later on you and I will do some shopping and have a lovely workout at the spa. We do want you in good health, my dear."

"You mean, so I can help Sir Humphrey?" Janelle glanced at the fat starry veck, wishing he would awake and govoreet that he wanted her by his side, not shopping with Lady Margaret. But he just slept on, snoring away real horrorshow and gromky.

Lady Margaret smiled, viddying her husband out out out. "That's right, dear. You're a healthy girl, a very healthy girl. Rest now. We need you strong and fit to help Sir Humphrey."

"All right." Janelle did not need more than like a push from Lady Margaret to shut her big brown glazzies. Soon she was off to sweet dreamland, just like Sir Humphrey. And with this posh limousine going zoom down the quiet country roads, her lovely deep sleep just ate up the hours like spaghetti. The next thing she knew they were at Rotherwood Manor.

There was a blast of cold air when the uniformed chauffeur opened the car door. Janelle climbed out of the limo stretching her long legs or nogas, stiff and tingly all over.

And then her red rot dropped open a mile.

"Quite something, isn't it?" Lady Margaret asked, a smug smile on her perfectly made up litso.

"It's like a castle!" Janelle had never viddied any such mesto in her jeezny before, let alone been invited to stay as a guest. There were lights glowing in all the windows, and the entryway was wide as a church door!

"It's not a castle," Sir Humphrey rumbled, "It's a country house. But it is nice to come home to, what? Nothing like a hot bath and a soft bed after a long day."

"None of that, my love," Lady Margaret said sharply. "Janelle is welcome to retire at once. She's just out of the hospital. But you have work to do – and your session with Julian."

"Right, right!" creeched Sir Humphrey, in a loud cheery goloss. "Exercise is the thing. Time to get healthy, what?"

He smecked. But to Janelle he sounded almost poogly.


	14. Dr Frankenstein Alexander

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Dr. Frankenstein Alexander

When the three weary travelers ittied into the bolshy big mansion, Janelle's rot dropped open in wonder once again. There was a chandelier in the hallway throwing off a million sparkles of light. The stairway up the stairs was like miles wide. And already there were servants goolying up all polite.

"We're ready for you now, Sir Humphrey," said this Julian veck. Janelle had never in her life viddied such a muscular male plot, sisters. Yet there was something not quite male about this veck. He was not like her own dear Frank, more of a sexless white-coated male nurse type veck. She could viddy quite clear that he would have no interest in her.

"Alicia, this is Miss Janelle Wilkes. She will be staying with us indefinitely. Please show the young lady to her room."

"Very good, my lady. Come this way please, Miss." The other servant in the hall was like the very opposite of Julian. This was Alicia the maid, a real silent type in black. She moved very quiet, like a cat almost, and she looked like she had been born in a starched white cap and frilly apron.

Janelle was very like grateful to be taken up to her room, which was all done up in red and gold, very luxurious, with a bolshy wide four-poster bed all ready to receive her tired plot. Yet while she was soaking away in a real horrorshow hot bath, lying back with her nogas propped up and her golden Gulliver resting snug on a waterproof rubber pillow, she began to have like second thoughts.

Exactly what did Lady Margaret mean about keeping her here "indefinitely?" Why was Sir Humphrey being like treated by male nurse Julian? Was the poor dear sick, or just very fat and trying to like reduce his weight? And how did his health problems connect to Lady Margaret asking over and over in the car if Janelle was like a real healthy devotchka?

All these questions made her linger in the bath a long time. When she ittied out at last there was already a white lace bed gown waiting for her on the mile-wide comfortable bed. Janelle was tired, sisters, even after having a bit of spatchka in the car that afternoon. But when she got under the covers the very first rabbit she did was to use the cell phone in her cally starry straw bag to call her friend and protector Frank.

"I don't know anything about Sir Humphrey's health problems, but I do know that about ten years ago his government got in serious trouble for doing medical experiments on state prisoners."

"Oh dear," Janelle creeched, feeling a bit sick. "Do you mean horrible anti-violence treatments like what I went through?"

"No, I don't think it was that, exactly," Frank rumbled thoughtful over the telephone. "There were rumors about glandular treatments, organ theft, things like that. The court records were sealed. The whole thing's a bit cloudy. Keep on the look out for any documents on Operation Mongoose."

"Operation Mongoose, right." Janelle paused. "I'm not in any danger here, am I sir? And just where is Rotherwood Manor? I dozed off in the car, so I've no idea where we are."

"Danger, no." Frank govoreeted, with a sort of grim chuckle. "I doubt if any of your organs would fit Sir Humphrey. Remember that to these people you're a political symbol, Janelle. You're no use to them dead." His goloss was sad, as though remembering some other veck who had died.

"Well, thanks for that, Dr. Frankenstein!" Janelle giggled. She wanted to hear Frank smeck again. He was so sad and unhappy all the time. "Sorry to be such a damsel in distress, Dr. Frankenstein Alexander, but I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with lewdies I hardly know, and I'm feeling just a little bit poogly. And when a young devotchka feels poogly that usually means she's scared to death!"

"Point taken," Frank govoreeted, his goloss very wry and dry. "I love the sound of Nadsat on your lips, darling – but I'm afraid it brings back some very unpleasant memories. Now, just to let you know where you are, you're in Somerset, about four hours west of London. Rotherwood village is just a few kilometers down the road from your present location. There's a public house in the village called the Red Dragon, and there's a great, big ugly barman named Ray who happens to be a very good friend of mine."

"Red Dragon, Ray. Got it." Janelle felt a warm glow, like she was part of a real team. It was like when she went out with her old droogs of the night. But not in any bad way, she told herself skorry, to stop the old sickness from whooshing up.

"Go to Ray if you need help digging for facts in the village," Frank was instructing over the phone. "Whatever you discover about Sir Humphrey, tell no one else. Call me on your cell whenever you can, or call Ray in the village if you need help right away. Someone will be there on the double."

"Frank, whatever happens, I just want to say . . ." All of a sudden Janelle was feeling weepy, ready for a real boo hoo. But before she and Frank could govoreet any further, the stern-faced maid ittied in silent with lovely dinner on a tray.


	15. Too Good To Be True

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Too Good To Be True

One thing Janelle viddied quite clear, sisters, was that it was Lady Margaret and not Sir Humphrey who like wore the pants at Rotherwood Manor. Because when the very silent and like respectful maid Alicia ittied in all cat-like with Janelle's dinner on a tray, the pischa that she found there was all low-fat, heart-healthy food, like fruits and fibers. Of course Janelle reckoned that it was good for a girl to watch her figure, look her best and all that cal and chepooka.

But what made her feel a bit poogly, as she was snapping her celery sticks in two and dipping them in cottage cheese, was to remember Lady Margaret asking over and over in the long black limo if she was like a real healthy devotchka. There wasn't anything wrong with being healthy, was there? She wasn't going to be used as a human lab rat, was she?

As soon as her malenky bit of dinner was like over and done, Janelle fell back on her pillow and lay staring up at the ceiling, with her rookers crossed behind her golden Gulliver. It felt silly having fears in this lovely like tranquil mesto. Maybe Lady Margaret ran the manor, but Sir Humphrey was here too. And he would never hurt her. Janelle had never had a Pee and Em, or a family of any kind. But when she shut her glazzies she could viddy the two of them doing things together almost like father and daughter. Shopping, gardening, visiting and such like. Unless he was too sick . . .

"Knock, knock!" creeched a soft, refined female goloss.

"Eh? Oh! I mean, please come in!" Janelle opened her eyes and sat up skorry, her long lashes all fluttery. She had almost dropped off lovely to sleepland, just for a minoota. Lady Margaret had creeched and tapped on the door polite, but like sleeping beauty she had viddied not nor slooshied.

"You seem to be settling in quite nicely." The older woman sat down all nice and droogy on the side of the bed. Her platties were not frilly nighttime clothes like Janelle had on, sisters, only good for going beddy-bye. Lady Margaret wore day platties, smart slacks and a tailored jacket, her look very wide-awake and in the height of executive fashion.

"I wasn't sleeping," Janelle creeched. "I was just lying here thinking, and I didn't sloosh – didn't hear you knock."

"Of course, dear." Lady Margaret smecked soft and gentle, showing all her white zoobies. "Naturally you need rest after such a long journey. But first I thought you and I should talk."

"Yes." Janelle leaned forward on the bed, determined, her long-lashed brown glazzies huge in her pale frightened litso. "Lady Margaret, I just want to say that I know Sir Humphrey is in poor health. And I know you're rich and have all the best doctors, but if there was ever anything I could do, like donating some of my blood or giving one of my kidneys . . ."

"Heavens! What are you on about?" Lady Margaret just looked at her, sisters.

"I'm afraid Sir Humphrey is going to die!"

"Die?" Lady Margaret smecked very gromky, like Sir Humphrey was a young hunk and not a very old fat veck. Then she gave Janelle a hug. "It's terribly sweet of you to offer, darling, but Sir Humphrey has everything he needs. We are doing _everything_ we can to help him stay healthy!"

"Oh! Bog be praised, my lady." Janelle's whole plot was filled with like blessed relief, sisters. She sagged against the padded headboard of her huge bed. "But then," she asked, "why did you keep asking me in the car if I was a horrorshow healthy devotchka – I mean, a healthy young woman?"

"Oh, that!" Lady Margaret smecked again, tossing the inky black hair out of her ice-blue eyes. "I'm afraid we're all in for rather a social whirl in the next few weeks. You see, election season is starting soon. I'll be away in London much of the time, since I handle the finances in our family. But if you and Humphrey were to appear at a few select events, your story would really draw political attention. And more important, a healthy young woman like you could set an example. Keep him away from the brandy and cigars, and that sort of thing."

"Oh! Yes, I see. Yes, I could do that, my lady, and gladly." Janelle had a real horrorshow warm feeling, being needed almost like a daughter. But then she frowned at Lady Margaret. "Why are you being so good to me, my lady?"

"Why?" The older lady tilted one slim, jet-black brow, looking smart and sexy. "Well, my husband likes you very much, Janelle. And for my part, I don't think you're quite the heartless criminal the government newspapers say you are."

"I'm not, really!"

"Of course you're not. And so of the other shop."

"The other shop?" Janelle was a bit puzzled, and sleepy from all this govoreeting about elections and governments. She fell back on the pillow as Lady Margaret stood up at last.

The slim, sexy older woman leaned over her in bed, whispering quite playful. "You can't always believe what the papers say about Humphrey and me, either."

And then she turned out the light.

Janelle did not like the feeling she got from govoreeting with Lady Margaret Carlton. It was the feeling of something being a little too good to be true. For a long time she tossed and turned in her luxurious and like mile-wide bed, trying to put her finger on just what was wrong with Rotherwood Manor. But in the end all she could do was picture Frank's stern and forbidding litso, cautioning her to be careful as she fell at last into a real horrorshow sleep.


	16. Compassionate Cannibalism

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Compassionate Cannibalism

"What it all comes down to, ladies and gentlemen, is that the state must not play God!" Bolshy applause, wealthy starry vecks clap clap clapping their plump rookers like bezoomny.

"We all know what happens when individuals are subjected to the tyrannical power of the state, their minds and bodies twisted in the name of crime prevention. Only God can cure the evil in the human soul. But what about when government tries to 'cure' us of free enterprise? When the state regulates successful corporations, the economy suffers and everyone loses. Yes, even the poor! Is this not an even more terrible crime than what has happened to our young friend Janelle?"

Janelle yanked her glazzies open real skorry, the shoom of applause and the sound of her own eemya waking her from the malenky snooze she'd been having off to one side. In just a second or two she was up on her high-heeled nogas, clap clap clapping just like everyone else, her new bracelets jingle-jangling all lovely and musical.

"Splendid speech, old man, splendid speech!" Sir Humphrey was busy pumping the rookers of the young American veck up and down, up and down, while Lady Margaret was govoreeting in a much lower goloss with some of the like fund-raising committee vecks standing in the background. The two of them had been dragging Janelle to political functions morning, noon and night for the last three days. Everyone wanted to point to the lovely young victim of the liberal government's vile anti-crime conditioning techniques.

But no one wanted to slooshy what she had to say.

"Tell you what, Sir Humphrey, if you and I could sit down over a couple of San Cristobal cigars, I could spell out what I want to say in my next book. I'm thinking of calling it Compassionate Cannibalism: How Lazy Liberals And The Undeserving Poor Feed Off The Hard-Working Rich."

"Judah Goldfarb, you're the man for me!" Sir Humphrey smecked real gromky, his fat red litso glowing with pleasure. "Maybe you are just a bloody Jew – a bloody Yank I mean. But when it comes to plain speaking in the cause of freedom you're one of us. Did you say you have San Cristobal Cigars?"

"None of that, darling!" Lady Margaret took her husband's arm, like a slim swan steering a hippopotamus out of danger. "Cigars are no good for you, and you know it. A car is waiting to take you home for lunch and a nice rest. Our brilliant Mr. Goldfarb will just have to excuse you for being such an obvious relic from another era!"

Janelle could viddy quite clear that clever Lady Margaret was very good at covering up real skorry and horrorshow for her aristocratic husband's crude, old-fashioned prejudices. But the young American political veck took no offense at all.

"A relic I admire greatly, my lady," this swarthy, dark-haired Judah veck creeched now, smacking Lady Margaret's slim white rooker kiss-kiss, like some love-bezoomny Frenchman. But then his shiny black glazzies like swiveled over to Janelle. "Maybe someone else would like to try a San Cristobal?"

"No, thanks." Janelle had no desire to sit in an arm-chair and puff away on some dirty cigar, sisters, especially not with the greedy glazzies of this young political veck like running up and down her plot. He didn't care about her; he just cared about her mile-long nogas and real horrorshow groodies. Just thinking about it nearly made her want to be sick.

"In spite of her past, my husband and I have come to think of Janelle almost as a daughter." Lady Margaret gave the Goldfarb veck a look that creeched quite plain _hands off_. "Run along, my dear, and keep an eye on Sir Humphrey. You know what a fuss he makes about his low-calorie diet!"

So then the limousine, and Janelle frowning in the back seat with her rookers folded and her nogas crossed. She kept trying to _reason_ with Sir Humphrey about not drinking from his brandy flask and not saying hateful things about people!

"Dash it all, I wasn't insulting the fellow! I said he was a Jew. Everyone knows Jews are smart. Look at those doctors who did such a bang-up job on you in that treatment center!"

"That was horrible!" Janelle's litso turned hot hot hot, the red red krovvy burning like a furnace inside her cheeks. "Please, sir. The only point I'm making is you can't assume Judah Goldfarb is clever – or selfish, or stupid, or greedy – just because he happens to come from the same background or group of people as that cally grazhny bratchny Dr. Brodsky." Janelle shut her glazzies and began rubbing her temples with her slim white fingertips. Her poor suffering Gulliver was really starting to throb throb throb from all this arguing.

"Dear girl, I'm sorry!" Sir Humphrey patted her on the knee, his goloss all husky and like ashamed. "I never meant to hurt you with my foolish talk. The truth is, I rather liked the young American. Until he started making eyes at you! And if I had ever known that you were one of Dr. Brodsky's test subjects, I never would have . . ."

"Never would have what?" Janelle just looked at him with big, frightened brown glazzies. Her litso was now quite pale.

"Nothing, nothing," the wealthy, starry old gentleman mumble-chumbled. "Never would have hurt you with my oafish manners and foolish old-fashioned ideas. And now, since Margaret's not watching us like a hawk for a change, let's have a little nip of brandy before lunch!"

"All right." Janelle knew it was bad for the old dear, but she didn't seem to have any energy left. After all that arguing and fighting she really needed something to steady her nerves. So she shut her glazzies and took a swallow, forgetting everything but the lovely fiery burn of fine expensive brandy.

Neither of them govoreeted even a single slovo during lunch. Sir Humphrey didn't care for salad. But he ate without complaining, a gloomy and guilty look on his fat starry litso. Janelle felt low as well. She was supposed to watch Sir Humphrey's drinking, not join him. It was all her fault, really. Sheila was her fault too. By the time the meal was over, Janelle just wanted to crawl off to her room and cry boo hoo on the big bolshy bed. But she felt it was her duty to be like cheerful, so she pasted a bright smile on her litso and said:

"Isn't it a lovely day, sir? How about a walk in the garden?"

"Sorry, old girl. Not up to it." Sir Humphrey didn't even look up from the greens he was pushing around on his plate.

"Oh, but I'm sure the exercise would do you good . . ."

"I said no!" The shoom of starry old Sir Humphrey's fist banging down on the table scared Janelle near half to death.

"Well, fine then. It's nothing to me if you want to die!" She threw down her napkin and ittied off, boo-hooing away.

"I'm not the one who must die, my dear." Sir Humphrey said, with sadness in his goloss. But the girl was already gone.


	17. A Very Lucky Devotchka

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Lucky Devotchka

Janelle was still crying away boo hoo, sisters, when she found herself outside in a large garden. She staggered over to a marble bench and sat down skorry, sniffling and wiping her glazzies. She felt very lonely and like abandoned.

No veck really cared about her, it seemed. Sir Humphrey would go on smoking long cigars and eating fatty foods and very soon die of massive heart failure. And his beautiful, icy blue-eyed zhena Lady Margaret would just go out and shop! The two of them were just like Janelle's Pee and Em, who had let her be taken during the Great Australian Flood without caring what became of their golden-haired little girl.

Suddenly the weeping devotchka thought of her writer friend, Frank Alexander. He would never abandon her! Janelle pulled her slim silver cell phone out of her peach-colored slacks, her rot going dry and her heart going throb throb as she thought of hearing the rugged older veck's gentle goloss once more.

"Frank, it's me!" she creeched, in a breathless and happy but also like blubbery and weepy type of goloss.

"Janelle? Have you been crying? Has someone hurt you?" Right away Frank's horrorshow feelings began to come out. "Look, if it's getting dangerous there . . ."

"No, no, it's not that at all." Janelle could have wept all over again, sisters, knowing how the older man cared for her. "I just wanted to hear a droogy goloss . . . a friendly voice. That's all. See, Sir Humphrey and Lady Margaret have been keeping me busy, with like meetings and fund raisers." Janelle told the writer veck all that had happened that day, ending up with Sir Humphrey yelling at her real nasty.

"Well, it seems Sir Humphrey isn't trying for a long life." Frank's goloss was very dry. "It doesn't sound like he's interested in any secret experiments, either. Have you been able to find out anything about what's going on in the house itself?"

"No, sorry," Janelle sighed. "We keep going to these long, boring meetings where they say government should stay out of lewdies' lives. And then they talk about what was done to me!"

"Yes, bait and switch," Frank grunted. "It's all very well to say that government shouldn't play God or brainwash criminals. But there are also those who feel that government shouldn't care for the sick, the elderly, the poor . . . and those people tend to be very rich."

"Just like Sir Humphrey and Lady Margaret!" Janelle felt glad she could like pony this political talk. It made her feel close to Frank. "But I do feel sorry for old Sir Humphrey," she said in a gentle goloss. "I just feel he's not so bad, somehow."

"You've got a good heart, my love," Frank govoreeted, smecking at her but in a nice way. "Just don't get yourself in trouble trying to be too good to the old man."

"I wish I was with you and Sheila right now!" When she govoreeted those words Janelle suddenly viddied why she had been boo-hooing so hard. "I really miss you, Frank," she added, almost a bit poogly of saying her feeling out loud. She was only a filthy vonny girl criminal, after all, and Frank Alexander was this most choodnessy and amazing man.

"Can you get away from the house for a bit?" he asked. "I could meet you at the Red Dragon later tonight." He paused, his goloss going all husky. "I've missed you too, Janelle."

"Oh, Frank!" Janelle wanted to itty into Frank's open rookers and forget all about the government and her horrible past and the web of secrets all around her. But then she got hold of her self. For they were partners and Frank was counting on her to uncover the truth.

"Tomorrow for lunch would be better," she said then, in a smart and crisp goloss like Lady Margaret's. "I can do some snooping this afternoon, and maybe find out what Sir Humphrey's been doing with that creepy bodybuilder Julian."

"Be careful," Frank said, serious. "Be careful, my love."

"I will, darling." Janelle snapped off her cell phone with a warm, glowy feeling. She really was a very lucky young devotchka!

But now it was time to make Frank proud.

_**A/N: Sorry this is such a short chapter, but everyone has been missing Frank and I wanted to make sure our two lovebirds had one more nice moment together – before things turn really scary!**_


	18. Surprise and Wonder

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Surprise and Wonder

Janelle felt invigorated after her brief yet intimate cell-phone govoreet with Frank. The man she loved didn't think she was a vonny cally little girl criminal. He thought she was a real horrorshow person who was strong and smart. A person who could do anything!

Now when she turned back to the house, this being the bolshy Tudor-style manor where Sir Humphrey and Lady Margaret lived in like the lap of luxury, Janelle thought that she viddied someone high in an upstairs window. It was a man, a chelloveck. But it was not fatty starry Sir Humphrey. Nor was it the gay muscleman Julian she had met earlier. This seemed to be some slim young veck she knew not, wearing hospital platties with all like wires and tubes running out from his plot. It seemed real bezoomny that such a sick veck would be out of his bed, but when Janelle blinked her puzzled velvet-brown glazzies he was gone. Vanished into thin air, as it might be.

Perhaps she had only imagined what she viddied, sisters. But all the same, Janelle wanted to viddy more. She also wanted to govoreet with Sir Humphrey, give him her appy polly loggies for the malenky bit of a quarrel they had at lunchtime. And it seemed to her that she had really seen very little of the house so far, even having stayed on as a like pampered and protected guest for near two weeks now.

"Can I help you with something, Miss?" This was Julian, blocking her way with his massive rookers folded over his chest when she ittied up to him polite and ladylike in the hall.

"Yes, thanks! If I might speak to Sir Humphrey?" It was funny how one whole side of the house was like off limits to her. Janelle had never viddied any of it. Nor had she ittied downstairs much, to the kitchens and storage areas, the old servant's hall and all that cal and chepooka. And so she gave Julian her most winning smile, sisters, using all her charm since rude behavior always made her feel a bit sick.

"Sir Humphrey is resting," creeched bolshy bulked-up Julian. "He always takes a nap in the afternoon, and he does not like to be disturbed. Perhaps you should lie down as well, Miss." This was all said in a very do-as-your-told type goloss.

"Yes, thanks! Please tell Sir Humphrey I'll see him at dinner." Janelle's smile was still nailed onto her lovely young litso, but inside she felt angry. She wasn't some vonny prisoner in a cally jail! Feeling all razdraz, she ittied back down the hall.

Now there were several empty bedrooms on the way, and in one of them Janelle viddied a laundry cart filled with like sheets and linens from the beds. That gave her an idea. Crawling into the cart, she pulled the used sheets on top of her. The smell or von was not so bad. She would stay hidden until the maid came to like wheel her downstairs. Then she would find out what was really going on!

It took a long, long time, sisters, for the maid to come back. Janelle was poogly at first, then restless, and then so bored that she nearly sailed off to dreamland. But just when her glazzies were drooping she heard like footsteps.

"Right, I'll take these linens downstairs," creeched a female goloss. Janelle woke up skorry, her stomach all full of butterflies as they went downstairs in a lift. Funny how there were elevators in this bolshy starry old Tudor house.

Down in the basement Janelle slooshied shooms of like a hospital. She wondered why there should be the clack-clack of nurses' shoes and the low rumble of doctor-type golosses, and the beep-beep of electronic machinery. Surely all this medical hardware was not required just to look after Sir Humphrey? Not even the richest veck could afford to build a private hospital in his own domy. And Sir Humphrey was really not that sick, sisters. Just very fatty and overweight.

Now when she stuck her nosy little kluve or beak over the rim of the cart Janelle did not viddy any veck at all. She climbed out skorry, meaning to find evidence or viddy things that she could tell Frank about when they met later on. If any veck caught her snooping she would just creech some excuse about being lost and use all her like feminine charm.

From the hallway she viddied that on one side was like a staff lounge, and this was where the shoom of voices had come from. So Janelle slinked away from there and into the opposite room, this being like an archive or storage area with lots of big binders on shelves and file cabinets full of folders.

When she began going through the files Janelle expected to find medical records for poor old Sir Humphrey, he being the main like patient these doctors cared about. But to her very great surprise and wonder the first file folder was all full of starry old newspaper or gazetta clippings that had nothing to do with Sir Humphrey Babcock.

These were all lurid news headlines and police crime reports. All about a vicious young criminal named Alex DeLarge.


	19. Let Her Go

CHAPTER NINETEEN: Let Her Go

"But what frightens me the most," Janelle creeched all breathless, her velvety-brown glazzies seeming huge in her lovely pale litso, "is that Sir Humphrey and those government bratchnies – sorry, sorry, I meant to say government _doctors_ – might actually have killed this criminal Alex for his organs."

_Tell her the truth._

Frank Alexander frowned, as if some rude interrupting veck was creeching strange slovos into his ooko or ear. But the Red Lion Tavern was empty. There was Frank, and the lovely and courageous Janelle, and then there was bolshy big muscle-man Ray, the bar man. But he was busy like mopping the barroom floor some distance away.

"The government didn't kill that wretched boy," the rugged writer veck forced himself to say, looking deep into Janelle's innocent brown eyes. "I killed him."

"Sir?" Janelle felt like a cold chill run down her back. Frank was looking so grim and hard, his stern litso creased in like a million lines of frowning bitterness and guilt. For a moment she was poogly, wondering what he might do to her if he knew all the things she'd done. But then she remembered all the like hints that poor old Sheila had dropped about poor Frank going a bit bezoomny after what those horrible malchicks did to his first wife or zhena. "Oh, sir, I know that you only did what you did to protect _her_. Your wife, I mean." And she reached out lovely with her soft white rooker, covering his on the rough wooden table.

_Tell her the whole truth, brother. _

"Well, now. Would you two lovebirds care for another drink?" This was Ray, the huge bar man, who had finished his bit of cleaning and ittied over skorry, wiping his beefy bolshy rookers on the grazzy old woman's apron that he wore.

"Whiskey." Frank didn't even look up. His glazzies were locked on Janelle like he had to memorize her lovely litso.

"No more for me, thanks." Janelle was all charm, giving the big burly working veck her most dazzling smile. "I want my wits sharp when I go back to Rotherwood Manor." 

"You're not going back." Frank looked stern at Janelle. "Don't you understand who these people are? What they would do to you if they knew you were trying to expose them?"

"But the news files and medical records are all so old!" Janelle waved her slim rooker, looking a bit like posh Lady Margaret. "They were buried down in the basement. Nobody saw me take them. Besides, if this Alex was not killed by the state, Sir Humphrey and his zhena have not done murder or any crime at all. They just lied about needing me!"

"Oh, they need you, all right," Frank replied, very grim. "You've got a body any sick old dinosaur would kill for."

"But Sir Humphrey is the one who's sick." Janelle frowned, thinking. "And all this time I thought he really wanted my help to get better, instead of just _buying_ a new body. It's disgusting!" She took a deep breath. "I know it's right for you to expose them, but before you do I want to talk to Sir Humphrey all on my oddy knocky. I trusted him. I cared about him! And all the time he let me think he was sick, and in trouble, and _needed_ me. I feel so angry I could just – _oh!_"

Janelle stopped govoreeting just then, sisters, because she felt so angry that she felt she might be sick. She actually got out of her seat and tottered a few steps towards the door, her high-heels click-clicking on the barroom floor. But Frank was right behind her.

"Yes, that's it," he hissed into her ooko, as she stood in the doorway trembling. "It's not enough to see justice done; you have to make that old man suffer. Just the way I had to make Alex suffer long after my wife was dead. Hate is the only reason for anything I've done, Janelle. Don't let it destroy you too."

"I'm going, Frank. Get out of my way." The beautiful devotchka did not think she could do it, but somehow she pulled free of the man's strong grip on her rooker and ittied off alone into the dark winter nochy.

"Janelle, wait! Please! Come back!" Frank tried to follow, but a huge pair of rookers seized him from behind.

"Let her go, mate." Ray the barman dumped the middle-aged writer into a chair. "You did good to tell her the truth. Now you've got to let her find out the rest of it on her own."

"But she's in danger!" Frank looked up at the burly barman. "Ray, we've got to get up there. Don't you understand? They won't stop with Alex. They're after Janelle's body too!"

"Right," Ray said. "But it's like you told me long ago, brother. We've got to have might on our side as well as right. So let's call in a few favors, shall we?"

_A/N: Sorry it's been so long between chapters, sisters. Hope you enjoy, and please review! BTW, Ray is not in the movie or the book. He's an original character, but based very closely on Ray Stevenson, the amazing English actor who played Titus Pullo in the HBO Series ROME!_


	20. Horrible Truth

CHAPTER TWENTY: Horrible Truth

Janelle had ittied only a few shaky steps from the like sheltering rookers of Frank Alexander when she began to wonder if going back to Rotherwood Manor was really such a horrorshow idea.

Outside the Red Lion, it was a very crisp and chill autumn nochy. And it was so dark, sisters, that Janelle could not viddy her shaking rooker in front of her pale white litso. Now for a minoota or two the luscious blonde devotchka just stood there, trembling in her high-heeled shoes. But then she shut her glazzies, and took a real deep breath of the icy night air.

So many things she remembered. Lubbilubbing with Frank, of course, but also smecking away with Sheila, and having real droogs and like a real home for the first time in all of her young jeezny. And she remembered all the crimes of her past, some of them even making her feel a bit sick. And then she said, "right, come on then," and ittied towards the light at the top of the hill.

Now when she got back to the mansion, Janelle viddied through the window that starry old Sir Humphrey was all on his oddy knocky, sitting in his book-lined study in front of a roaring fire. There was wine on the table, and veggies and steaming roast, and it seemed he was having his dinner in like lordly solitude.

"Ah, Janelle! Thank heavens! We were becoming quite worried about you, my dear. Do sit down and have a bite to eat."

"No, thank you." Janelle had to be very polite, sisters, to keep the sickness from like knocking her off course. "I only came to collect my things, Sir Humphrey, and to thank you and Lady Margaret for taking me in. But I don't feel that I can stay here anymore. You see, I know the truth about your experiments. And so does Frank Alexander."

"Experiments?" Starry Sir Humphrey said, his fatty red litso looking very befuddled and like bewildered. "What sort of rot is this? Sit down, my dear, and tell me everything from the beginning. Tell me what you've heard. And while you're at it, do have something to eat. You look ready to faint from hunger."

"It's not what I've heard," Janelle creeched, her temper flaring and making her feel just that malenky bit sick. "It's what I've seen. Medical files on a violent criminal named Alex – a criminal you and your wife used as a Guinea pig for illegal experiments!" Janelle's soft and ladylike goloss cracked a bit as she govoreeted that last bit, sisters. She sat down skorry, her Gulliver throbbing.

"But my dear, we were trying to save the young man, not destroy him." Sir Humphrey's watery gray glazzies filled up with tears as he filled Janelle's glass right to the top with vino or wine. "If only you could have seen the injuries the poor boy suffered after his suicide attempt. Did Frank Alexander tell you that he forced young Alex to jump out a window? That poor, poor boy!"

"That _'poor boy'_ raped and murdered his poor helpless zhena . . . I mean his wife!" Janelle felt very sick, and she viddied that she had to stop all this govoreeting about horrible violence and rape. She picked up her wine glass and took just a tiny malenky sip. The feeling she got was of lovely warmth flowing through her. "Frank has changed, sir. He really has. He's looking to put the past behind him. Maybe I can help him with that." Janelle took another sip, a longer one, this time thinking of Frank and like melting inside. "All I want, sir, is to help him find peace."

"By exposing Margaret and me, you mean." Sir Humphrey rumbled. He sloshed a bit more vino into the young devotchka's glass. "Poor Janelle, you've no idea how angry and bitter that man really is. He doesn't want to change. He wants to finish what he started. It's not enough to know his old enemy is a hopeless cripple. Frank still wants to kill the poor boy!"

"You mean that horrible criminal Alex is still alive?" All this time Janelle had just assumed that the boy who'd hurt Frank so badly was dead. Sheila said so. Everyone said so. Her rookers were shaking as she reached for her glass. This time she drank deeply.

"Of course he's still alive." Sir Humphrey began filling her china plate with yummy roast and veggies. "But he's bedridden, barely conscious. Margaret and I have been looking after him for years. We've spent a fortune on surgeries to help him get well. But it's no use. He's on life support. The doctors say it's only a matter of time before his respiratory system fails."

"Oh." Janelle picked up her silver fork feeling foolish and dim. She didn't know whether to be happy or sad that Alex was in such a state. She just felt like a heavy burden was finally sliding off her pletchoes. Poor Frank could finally be at peace. "But what about his organs?" she suddenly asked, forgetting her manners a malenky bit and govoreeting with her rot full. "The medical reports I read said that most of Alex's organs have already been harvested. Is that why he's been put on life support, Sir Humphrey? So you can steal the rest of his organs for yourself?"

"Eh, what?" For just a minoota the starry old man looked at Janelle as though she were a bit bezoomny. Then he leaned back in his chair and gave a real gromky smeck. "Dear girl, do I look like the sort of chap who wants to live forever? As it happens, I'm in perfect health." And he reached for a long cigar.

"Oh! Well . . . well, that's lovely to hear. But still, Sir Humphrey, I really must go. I'll just be gathering up my platties, my clothes I mean, and then I'll be ittying off . . . I mean I'll be going." Janelle was pushing away her plate, and then getting to her feet. But it seemed her long legs or nogas felt a bit wobbly. And then she heard an icy female goloss that made her krovvy run cold.

"Going? Don't be ridiculous, my dear. You're not going anywhere. Julian, prepare the laboratory. We have work to do."

"Lady Margaret!" Janelle's slim white rooker flew to her throat. She knew the truth now. It was horrible! She thought of fighting, but just thinking of fighting made her want to collapse and sick. She thought of running, too, but her lovely long nogas felt so weak. It was the wine. That was it. She took two steps and then just fell into the arms of old Sir Humphrey.

He really was quite fit for such a starry fatty old veck.

_A/N: Thanks to everyone for waiting so long for a new chapter. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to our story! _


End file.
